Serial, or Die.
Blogging Serial, Season 2 — Ep. 3: Be Careful Wishing
Read discussion on Eps. 1 and 2 here!
I don’t remember how old I was when I learned the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it,” but I do remember it resonated with me. It was the first cliché I’d heard with its own built-in cruel joke — that our wish fulfillments might destroy us. It’s like the anti-Secret!
It also reminds me of a Jewish tradition my mother taught me of spitting three times when someone shares good news. You go “puh puh puh” to ward off the inevitable comeuppance. (No, all religions are not the same.)
Bowe Bergdahl wished for an heroic moment, in which his escape would set off a DUSTWUN of attention from the world’s leaders and he would finally be heard. The irony of him getting exactly what he wanted was the price he had to pay in long-term isolation and dehumanization.
So too, I wished in my last entry that Serial this season would take a different approach than last season. Excuse the comparison. There’s no comparison; I’m being thematic. Anyway, Season 2 was shaping up to be another “is he a good guy or a villain?” story without resolution. To be fair, I had just slogged through The Staircase and was a little grumpy about investing hours in tedious courtroom footage in return for no one to blame.
I was happy at first to hear Episode 3 approach the Bergdahl case in a different way. This stand-out episode breaks Serial form, using the whole hour to tell one time-contained story in present tense, Bowe’s first year as a hostage. This seems like a way of honoring what Bowe went through, like, “Let’s all take a moment here.”
The story deserves it. It’s brutally sad. I mean, he was chained up all the time — “spread eagle” at one point for months — and watched videos of beheadings. The only levity comes in some of his interactions with his captors, like how they shaved his mustache but kept his beard, because it looked dopey. Bullying: It never stops being funny.
Koenig describes Bowe’s endlessly intricate efforts at building towards an escape — counting time in the dark, practicing night after night. It reminds me of a concert pianist playing the same song over and over in preparation for the big night, but with the added stakes that he dies if he gets a note wrong. It’s impressive that Bowe figures out his escape plan on his own. The only training that the army gives for being held captive is a superficial “Code of Conduct”: “Don’t cooperate. But don’t die!”
It’s also amazing how much Bowe can remember. The Army debriefers praised the quality of his intel. I imagine what a great soldier he could’ve been, if his talents were utilized properly.
Some of Bowe’s escape stories are almost hard to believe. Like, it took under 15 minutes for him to escape chains and a locked door, run passed three houses, climb onto a roof, and cover himself in mud? I half-wonder if he’s caught up in the Jason Bourne fantasy he described in Episode 1.
But then he walked off a cliff. And ended up injured, crawling around naked, dizzy, nearly discovered by a sheep. If this is a movie, it’s more like Jason Bourne meets Buster Keaton meets Shoah.
Either way, Bowe is a great storyteller. Some of his descriptions are so rich — like the rooster crowing in the background of the beheading video; the old woman wiping off his mud before his captors take him away; his saying “oof” when he fell off that cliff, “just like in a cartoon.” Bowe is like Koenig’s counterpart in lyricism and detail, with a sprinkle of colloquialism (hers — “shit”; his — “good grief”). I wonder if we aren’t leading up to a moment between them, like the “It’s you” moment with Adnan:
“Bowe, it’s nice to finally meet you (giggle), at least on the phone. I’ve been hearing you in my head for so long…”
“Yeah. I know how that can be.”
Besides in its structure, Koenig breaks with Serial form in Episode 3 by stating clearly her opinion. Last year, a strong Koenig statement was like, “Hmm. But then again…” This year, she firmly “puts to rest” the rumors of Bowe’s Taliban sympathies. Officers on both side of the war agree that he resisted. This was a huge relief! I don’t care if Bowe turns out to be a bad guy, but I don’t want to be guessing for months.
Any lingering doubt seems to come from Mark Boal, but subtly. He doesn’t think Bowe’s a traitor, but he’s confused about some facts. I wonder if we’re shaping up to have a good cop/bad cop between Koenig and him.
Some of Bowe’s story is confusing to me too. Bowe’s promise that he was intending to be a whistleblower would be more believable if he was at his post for more than a few months. That’s a little early to call your boss a nut job.
What I don’t understand is Mark Boal having trouble with Bowe’s state of mind. He finds Bowe’s story “hard to take” and questions why he isn’t a “total vegetable”, as “95 percent of people” would be after facing that much trauma. Um, no.
Shock and distance are completely relatable and normal reactions to PTSD. Analytical description is a perfectly adequate tone to take in describing terrible events. The victim owes nothing to anybody in how the story is told.
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt isn’t about a former “mole person” crying and rocking back and forth all day. The best moments are when Kimmy, usually filled with hope and joy, suddenly twists her face while having a flashback. What seems unfathomable to one person is not shocking to another who has dealt with it for five years. People will say things like, “I would have killed myself” or “But you don’t look sick!” Maybe Bowe is just too good of a storyteller that it’s off-putting to some.
It’s well known that Bowe was discharged from the coast guard for psychiatric reasons. I assume that will be discussed on a future episode, hopefully more thoughtfully than the “Is Adnan a psychopath?” theories in Season 1. We don’t know that Bowe’s mental health condition, if any, played a role in Afghanistan. Maybe he is no stranger to PTSD and has coping mechanisms that run deep. I didn’t have trouble hearing his story, and I don’t think his state of communicating now tells us much.
I should’ve been careful when I asked for something different, because I think Serial might be really depressing this year. I think it might be exploring how unfair, unproductive, and destructive the military system can be. One dumb mistake made under tough conditions by an imperfect guy, and he pays for it from all sides. The Taliban imprisons and tortures him. They assume he’s lying about whatever he says. He can’t win with them. The Army locates him, then blames him for the effort it took. They take his intel, congratulate him for it, then look for reasons to lock him up for life. He can’t win with them.
I took an unfortunate peek at Reddit, and it looks like Bowe can’t win with the audience (or Reddit audience) either. The responses mostly seem to range from “He’s lying” to “Yeah, okay, he was tortured for five years, but I’m bored.”
It’s as if, thematically, “The system is rigged against the individual” is the new “Did he, or didn’t he?” — not just on Serial but in true crime in general. The new seasons of the Undisclosed and Truth and Justice Podcasts are both focused on wrongful conviction cases. The previews alone make me sad. I want to go back to passing moral judgments on teenagers! I can’t go back. I asked for this.
One of the more interesting parts of this episode is its focus on how “they (the Taliban) are like us.” Their soldiers sound like ours: resentful of their jobs. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Serial arrives at a story of a parallel guy, like a Bizarro-Bowe? I’m really enjoying how this is played so quietly.
I was feeling better after this episode, then I read a quote from Koenig in Vulture about this season:
“I want to say, ‘Nobody read ahead!’ Everyone wait for us to be done. ‘Nobody read anything, just listen to what we do and make your measured, calm judgments.’ But that’s not the world we live in, obviously… Can’t we just wait? I’ll get there, I’ll get there.”
I’m sure Serial Season 2 is a masterwork, taken as a whole. But this is a very active, pending, prominent case. You’re releasing episodes weekly, while things are happening, in a man’s life.
The Vulture article mentions how there was pressure to have a Serial season debut this year, which explains the odd timing of the first episodes around the holidays. Apparently, they were still deciding on a story this summer. I wish instead the Serial team had taken their sweet time and Mad Men-ned us with a long overdue but deeply investigated season.
I don’t want to be a Serial hater. As long as they keep delivering good episodes like this one and don’t do any damage to the Bergdahl case, then I’ll be happy. (Puh puh puh.)